


Rise Up Above It

by oreganotea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Discrimination, First Time, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mutation, Science Fiction, Slash, Urban Fantasy, mild AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oreganotea/pseuds/oreganotea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it. What he is,” Lestrade remarks one day at a crime scene.</p>
<p>“Mutants are over-represented in the military,” says John. “It’s about the only halfway decent job they can get, even if they’re never allowed to move up the ranks.”</p>
<p>He has to push down a stab of irritation and remind himself that getting angry at every person who sees Sherlock as something less than human would be a waste of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rise Up Above It

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Выше обстоятельств](https://archiveofourown.org/works/615769) by [Madoshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madoshi/pseuds/Madoshi)



> Spanish translation by LoversByHaters available on [fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9739293/1/Rise-Up-Above-It).
> 
> [Fanart](http://threeplanetswatson.tumblr.com/post/53759703147/quickie-fanart-for-the-gorgeous-sherlock-fic-rise) by [threeplanetswatson@tumblr](http://threeplanetswatson.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Very very very very very loosely based on (more like inspired by) the Strugatsys’ Roadside Picnic.

John understands why his potential flatmate is having trouble finding someone to share the rent with the moment he sees him.

The man is mutant.

His overall physique is basically human, as far as John can tell, but his skin is green and appears to be covered in scales, his fingernails look more like claws, and there is something vaguely alien about the shape of his face.

None of which is nearly as unsettling as his pitch black eyes.

It’s a ridiculous detail to fixate on, John muses. People talk about seeing others’ emotions in their eyes all the time, true, but what they really mean are the surrounding structures – the eyebrows and the eyelids and the muscles. The eyeball itself can express very little. Maybe it’s the fact that without a pupil and iris, it’s impossible to tell where the man looking.

“Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine,” the man says the moment the door clicks shut behind them. He doesn't look away from his work.

“What’s wrong with the land line?” Mike asks.

“I prefer to text.”

Mike pats at his pockets as he moves further into the room. “Sorry, it’s in my coat,” he says, making himself comfortable on one of the lab stools.

“Here,” John offers. “Use mine.”

The man finally lifts his head, surprise written clearly on his face.

John can’t say he blames him. People tend to feel uncomfortable around mutants at best, and for most the fear and disgust go a lot deeper than that. Few would want to do a mutant even the smallest of favours if asked, never mind making the offer themselves.

Mike waits for the man to thank John and accept the offered phone before introducing them. “This is an old friend of mine, John Watson,” he says. “John, this is Sherlock Holmes.”

“How do you feel about the violin?” Sherlock asks as he types.

“Sorry?” John blinks.

“I play the violin when I’m thinking and sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”

John’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. No mention of his mutation. Because it’s too obvious to bring up, or because the man honestly doesn’t see it as a drawback? That would be a first.

“I can live with the not talking,” he replies. “How well do you play?”

Sherlock’s lips twitch in amusement. “Depends on my mood,” he says, handing back John's phone.

“Well,” John says. “If you wake me up in the middle of the night, I might have to throw something sharp and pointy at you. Otherwise we should be fine.”

+

On the 6th of July of 1979, a black sphere about the size of a hot air balloon appeared in the air above St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Similar spheres appeared at the same time in at least fifteen other locations around the world. They vanished without a trace exactly two minutes later.

A variety of causes – ranging from holographic technology to mass hallucinations to an alien visitation – were considered and thoroughly examined, but to this day the spheres remain a complete mystery.

Five years after the event, the first mutations began taking place.

Fifteen years after the event, it was confirmed that the mutations were limited to the children of women who had been present within a certain radius of the spheres while pregnant.

+

Sherlock is one of the lucky ones.

Bill’s younger sister had devolved into a chimpanzee. (The family still doted on her, and Bill showed off her picture and told stories about her like any proud older brother would, but to John this only made their situation seem that much more tragic.) Many of the mutants John had treated during his time in the army looked more like trees and trolls and frogs than people. (John still wonders how many of them he couldn’t save not because their wounds were fatal, but merely because their anatomy was so far removed from anything he was familiar with.) Some hadn't survived the change at all.

Sherlock isn’t even ugly. If he appeared in some movie about fairies or gods or extraterrestrials, John is certain he would be described as strikingly attractive.

It’s kind of funny, but mostly sad, that Sherlock being human makes so big of a difference. That while he would make for a handsome demon, for a man he looks horribly disfigured.

The fact that even after twenty years of research the scientific community still hasn’t found the underlying cause of these mutations, not even on a genetic level, makes them that much more frightening.

+

People don’t touch Sherlock, as a rule.

Fellow pedestrians give him a wide berth when he passes them on the street, and vendors try not to let their fingers brush against his when they hand him back his change. Even the few who do initiate contact, those who seem to genuinely like Sherlock – Mrs. Hudson and Angelo and Lestrade – can’t completely hide their discomfort.

Sherlock, for his part, appears to be completely indifferent to human touch. When other people touch him, he looks neither happy nor uneasy. When they avoid his touch, he doesn’t look angry or hurt. He doesn’t avoid making contact himself – guiding John along with a hand on his back, pushing a tech out of his way at a crime scene, grabbing the shoulders of a witness to startle her into giving an honest answer – but it’s always contact with a purpose, never contact for the sake of contact.

+

John is shocked when he meets Molly, the first time he accompanies Sherlock to the morgue, because she is a mutant too.

It’s the mildest mutation he has ever seen. She has pointed ears, swallowtail eyebrows and two small bumps on her forehead, and her skin might have a slightly unnatural violet tinge to it, but otherwise she looks perfectly normal.

Still, no matter how mild the mutation, getting a good job (getting any job at all, for that matter) is practically impossible for a mutant. Which is why so many of them are forced to join the Black Sphere experimental studies and clinical trials to make a living.

Apparently Sherlock isn’t the only exception.

“Sorry,” John says as they move aside to let Sherlock examine a body. “I promise I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just… I think it’s pretty amazing, that you managed to become a doctor.”

“Oh,” she says, startled, “no, I just got lucky. My parents lived right on the edge of the radius. For a while we even thought I was safe,” she offers a small, pained smile. “The change came really late for me. I was already working here, and they were kind enough to let me stay.”

“But you could hide it, if you wanted to,” John says carefully. Because she could. Easily.

Molly nods. “I know, but… it just doesn’t seem right to. I’m not _ashamed_.”

+

“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it. What he is,” Lestrade remarks one day at a crime scene.

“Mutants are over-represented in the military,” John says. “It’s about the only halfway decent job they can get, even if they’re never allowed to move up the ranks.”

He has to push down a stab of irritation and remind himself that getting angry at every person who sees Sherlock as something less than human would be a waste of time.

“Makes sense,” Lestrade says. “Are all soldiers this comfortable around them, then?”

“No,” John admits, watching as Sherlock circles back around the victim's house. “There was still a lot of segregation. Mutants and nonmutants were never placed in the same platoon. But as a doctor I treated everyone.”

+

Because Sherlock has never touched for the sake of touching before, the shift is easy to notice when it happens.

It’s nothing big. Nothing _obvious_. It’s a brush of fingers against John’s back when Sherlock passes him in the kitchen. It’s a hand on John’s shoulder when Sherlock leans over to take a look at his laptop screen. It’s sitting a little too close together on the couch while watching bad telly, their knees occasionally knocking together.

John has never been a very touchy-feely sort of bloke. Never enjoyed being physically close to anyone but his girlfriends. With anyone other than Sherlock, he’s sure the subtle but increasingly frequent invasions of his personal space would annoy him, so it’s strange that they don’t.

It’s strange that when he allows Sherlock to take a look at his head after the Black Lotus fiasco, he doesn’t pull away even as Sherlock’s clinical examination turns into a gentle massage, only sighs and leans further into the touch.

John wonders if it’s the fact that Sherlock is a mutant that makes it so easy. Maybe his brain sees it more as being affectionate with a different species than being affectionate with a _man_. No-one ever thinks about gender when petting a cat, after all.

John wonders if comparing Sherlock to an animal makes him a horrible person.

+

“There are lives at stake, Sherlock. Actual human lives! Just so I know, do you care about that at all?” John demands, angry and frustrated and more than a little disappointed.

“Will caring about them help save them?” Sherlock asks, unimpressed. His inhuman black eyes have never looked so cold to John.

“Nope.”

“Then I will continue not to make that mistake.”

“And you find that easy, do you?”

Sherlock tilts his head. “How many normals do you suppose would care about a dead mutant?”

And just like that, John’s anger is gone. Very few, he knows. Most at least try not to be obvious about it, but news of a murdered mutant never inspires the same fear and horror and indignation as news of a murdered normal. _It’s for the best, isn’t it?_ people will often whisper. _I know I’d rather die than live a life like that._

“Don’t make people into heroes, John,” Sherlock says. “Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.”

+

When you are strapped to a bomb and in all likelihood have less than an hour left to live is probably not that best time to realize that you’re in love, John thinks.

Especially if the person you’re apparently in love with is the person who got you into this mess in the first place.

But no, that’s not fair. John had known what Sherlock was like from the start. Had learned exactly what sticking around would mean, the good and the bad, within fourty-eight hours of meeting the man.

So angry as John is about being kept in the dark (the last thing he will ever be angry about, possibly), he doesn’t hesitate to throw himself at Moriarty’s back and shout at Sherlock to run the moment he sees his chance.

+

“I would understand if you wanted to leave.”

It takes John a moment to process the words. When he does, he looks up from his newspaper with a frown already firmly in place.

“What?” he says.

“It would be the smart thing to do,” Sherlock goes on. He's standing by the window, his back turned to John. “I almost got you killed. If you stay, I almost certainly will.”

“You almost get me killed every week,” John points out. “Why say this now?”

“This time was different.”

It was a little more personal than their cases usually are, John supposes, but he's not sure why (or even if) that's important.

It doesn’t matter either way.

He gets up from his chair and moves to Sherlock’s side. Turns him by the shoulder until he is facing John.

“I’m not leaving,” John says, and tugs Sherlock down into a kiss.

Sherlock freezes, but doesn’t pull back. John waits him out. Keeps his hold on the back of Sherlock’s neck loose in case he's reading this wrong. A few seconds (a small eternity), and Sherlock’s lips soften against his; Sherlock’s arms come up around John’s waist and tug him closer. John relaxes into the embrace, allowing his eyes to slip closed.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” Sherlock asks when they part. “Being friends with a mutant is one thing, John. Being more than that…” he trails off. “It’s not too late to say no. Nothing has to change.”

John lifts a hand to cup Sherlock’s cheek. His skin feels too smooth and bumpy to be human. A little too cool.

“Forget the mutant bit. I’ve never done this with a bloke at all. It’s bound to get a little awkward one way or another,” John says with a wry smile. “I'm _sure._ ”

After a moment of silent regard, Sherlock smiles back and leans in for another kiss. “I am a very quick study,” he murmurs against John’s lips. “And you’re not half bad yourself. I’m sure we’ll do fine.”

End.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Rise Up Above It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692514) by [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)




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